I'm flying from Boston to Paris in late June 2015 (returning mid July). Trying to set the budget and assuming $1,200 per ticket. How does this compare to what folks paid in 2014 peak season from Boston, NYC or Washington DC? Alternatively, is there a website that will hindcast prices of particular flights for you? I'm on Yapta, which updates the price of the flight I want to buy daily, but it would be great to see how 2014 prices changed over time.
Thanks,
Matt
Ticket prices are decided by supply and demand. And Four airline alliances are essentially controlling the supply of seating--and therefore prices. They are very good at what they do.
Hang back until after the first of the year, and price adjustments are expected--depending on projected customer volumes. Right now, the prices posted are just a "pie in the sky" and the highest ever.
I flew into Budapest March 28th and out of Prague mid April, 2014 for $728. I spotted a one day sale mentioned in the Atlanta newspaper and on ClarkHoward.com. We always travel in Spring & Fall to avoid crowds and get the best airfare. Temperatures are also more enjoyable.
If the prices remain high to Europe, we reserve Canada and Hawaii as backup vacation destinations.
We paid $1213 each for a flight in May 2014 from Detroit to London, returning from Paris to Detroit. Right now I'm pricing a flight from Detroit to Rome, returning from Paris to Detroit and its a little under $200 more each. I'm waiting a bit before I commit. Good luck! And no, it won't make or break our trip.
In Fall 2013 we paid $1300 each for flights from Columbus OH/Chicago/Frankfurt/Marseilles early May 2014 returning Paris/Toronto/Columbus OH mid May. Since we paid for four tickets, and were paying for four to travel, a couple hundred dollars per ticket was significant.
May 2013 I paid $1100 for RT Alitalia non-stop from JFK (NYC) - FCO (ROMA), May 15 - July 2.
May 2014 I paid $660 for RT Emirates non-stop from JFK to MXP (Milan) May 14 - June 2.
June 2014 I paid $990 for RT Swiss, JFK, change in Frankfurt, to Milan, June 21 - July 2.
You are all so lucky! I live in Wichita, Kansas and flew to Munich in July and it cost $1700 round trip, usually Paris is a little cheaper at $1500-$1600. I envy those who live close to a International hub and can fly direct!!!!! If I could live anywhere it woud be near Atlanta because they fly everywhere in Europe.
Just booked Philly to Belgium for early April RT @ just under $1,200.00.
When you buy seems to be a factor as well. I tend to purchase my tickets 8 mo. out, it seems as your departure date gets closer the airline prices for overseas seems to go up, at least with Air France & KLM.
Check this search site http://matrix.itasoftware.com/
A 21 day trip came back for $1020.
Pretty much, now a days, tickets are close to $1100+ for summer travel.
Last January, I paid close to $1400 to fly from Boston to Rome, mid-June to early July 2014. This was on AirCanada. At the time, Alitalia prices (direct flights) and Lufthansa were in the $1700 range.
Try this, go to the airline web site (I used US Airways) on Tuesday morning after 2am ( yes 2 am). Airlines discount their ticket at this time for a few hour to fill remaining seat. I bought non stop flights to CDG airport from Charlotte NC for $1042.00. (normally $1380.00) The main thing to keep in mind is to look at seating chart daily. My fight sold seats the next week for $890..00. I needed 6 seats and bought at a time when it was possible to sit together. Good Luck
@Phil, no the Air Canada flight I took was not on Rouge. I noticed that some of the flights they offered were on Air Canada Rouge but the price difference was minimal.
I was able to score tickets for 900. Just start looking early and on a lot of websites.
Great - thanks to all for the input. I will use it to set realistic expectations with regards to flight prices and to help me know when I should pull the trigger. All knowledge in this regard is helpful.
-Matt
Matt -
I just booked our tickets from Denver to Paris two weeks ago on Iceland Air. We're headed to Paris in late May 2015. We have a 1.5-hour layover in Reykjavik, which I'm told is plenty of time to clear customs and even grab some food before getting back on the place (hard to believe, but apparently the airport is so tiny that it allows for some serious efficiency when swapping planes). Anyway, we paid $972/person. I didn't mind the short layover and the fact that we will have to bring on our own food and/or purchase on the flight since it meant a savings of roughly $300/person and there are two of us. Hope that helps!
A few weeks ago I booked a roundtrip to Paris from DC in for two weeks mid-May 2015 w/ approx 1 hour layovers in Iceland each way but decent departure and arrival times (mid-day) for $995 using Cheap-O Air after searching multiple sites thru Kayak. A French friend says generally the Iceland Air deal is usually least expensive. FareCompare website has some good tips and ideas...you can also book flights through their site.
Matt, I bought a nonstop round trip from Seattle-Paris for $1,265. Purchased the tickets in late June for an October 1st departure. Purchased through the Air France website and the flight is on their partner carrier Delta Air.
@ Donald
ATL isn't always much better. Was looking at Paris in mid-November and non-stops are running almost $1400 on Delta. Usually, you can get a fare sale that would come with a change-over in BOS or JFK and get the price down to $1200.
I always look for good fares in the 8 mos. out range too, but I heard a travel person early this year say 55 to 56 days out for best pricing. Three friends were looking for airfares around that many days out but they all waited until a week later. All of their airfares, domestic and international, went up from between $100 and $400 the following week. The fares before the 55-56 days out were also quite a bit higher. Just saying, might be worth checking. Good travels to you all.
Devra
Do you have to fly into/out of Paris? If so, of course options are limited and it is high season. Do you have to get non-stop? These tend to be so high...higher than ever...But one stop flights can really save $$$. e.g. Icelandair with a stop in beautiful Reykjavik.
For off season, I think my record is about 850$ from LAX to Oslo and out of Copenhagen. This was a great Fall price I think.
And, I have paid between 900-1200$ for Summer flights from LAX. Some were non-stop, some had 1 stop.
Considering how far is LAX...not so bad I guess! Oh and I tend to book two months or 1 month before. But I understand some people need to buy many tickets and plan more in advance for various reasons.
If you can do mid June, or earlier, you might be able to save some cash. Look at skyscanner.com and plug in different dates and see what pops up. Also, you are searching to early. Start looking Dec. through Feb. for a June flight. About 4 to 5 months out, fares drop then pick back up about 3 months out. If you fly on Tues, Wed, Thurs. or SOMETIMES on Sat, the flights are cheaper.
I just checked Skyscanner for June 10 return July 17 and got the following:
Depart flight
2:35 PM
BOS –
6:20 AM
CDG
1 stop KEF
9h 45m (+1)
Return flight
8:00 AM
CDG –
7:00 PM
BOS
1 stop KEF
17h
Total price
$971
Lot's of good intel here - thanks. I'm laying the groundwork now and don't anticipate actually buying anything until later. I'm a data guy (which doesn't mean that I'm trying to beat the system) so I've got Yapta set up collecting information and sending me data regularly. At some point the prices on the flights I am tracking are going to start fluctuating, either through the normal algorithms of supply and demand or through airline sales and special offers. At some point I'm going to buy - the data that you are providing will help me to judge where that price point is, so thanks.
Here are my best and worst experience buying flights:
Best: Year 2001 Spring Break - Direct, Round Trip flight on Northwest air from Detroit to Rome for $228. I'm not making this up - it was an introductory rate for the direct route. The plane was full of University of Michigan students.
Worst: Got a good price on a direct Boston to Milan flight through AirOne. When not enough seats were filled, they cancelled the flight and turned it into a boston to Chicago to Milan flight, with a 5 hour layover in Chicago. I refunded by tickets but since I paid in Euros through the AirOne website, I ended up losing approximately $200 just on exchange rate fluctuations over the 6 months between when I bought and when I got the refund. Tack that onto the $200 extra per flight I paid to get a replacement flight!
Hi Matt,
I flew British Airways June 27 BOS-CDG this year, returning from Nice, France (NCE) to BOS (through Heathrow) July 11 this year. I paid $1600, but I paid $150-200 extra for Premium Economy. I think I bought the tickets in mid-March. I checked Air France at the time and they were about the same, but I wanted The frequent flier miles with BA which is why I. Picked them.
Good Luck finding good rates next year!
:)
Three reasonable. Check Icelandair and Are Lingus for cheaper flights.
Airfares have been more on the expensive side this year. We're based on the West Coast so tough for us to throw our .02 cents in, but generally we find $1,200-1,300 to be reasonable and normal from Seattle so I would imagine you could find something a little cheaper to Paris from the East.
Right now the prices are decent. One way from Boston to Paris in Iceland Air on July 1, 2015 is $484.
Just wanted to add that something else I do to bring down the price is to fly JFK to Dublin which usually seems reasonably priced and then take a low cost domestic carrier such as Ryan Air to where I want to go in Europe.
We also flew Norwegian Air for the first time last week and the plane was modern, wide-body, good flight crew, etc. and the cost was cheap. Like $155 to fly home (Ft Lauderdale) from Copenhagen. The key is to go to their home page and explore the costs for the cities they fly to from one of their hubs (of which one is in NY I believe). For us, Copenhagen was the cheapest city to get home from, so I booked us on a flight from Paris (where we were visiting) to Copenhagen on Easy Jet. Once we added in seat selection on Norwegian and the flight to CPH I think it was up to about $400 to fly home.
apparently Norwegian Air is known for stranding people.
There really IS No price for a ticket. Everyone on every plane paid something different. The airlines have more computing power than NORAD. Play around with comparison sites like Kayak and YAPTA and just see what you see. And yes, it's largely out of your control so don't oversweat it.
Hi Matt, I agree with sanderskn about Aer Lingus and if you do not mind a layover usually at Dublin. Do not know if they fly out of Boston. I noticed that airfares tend to be their best about two months before travel date but who knows.
Airfares are subject to demand/supply. Watch the euro it has been weak, per xe at this hour $1.25 and being predicted to struggle in long term. It is a good time to travel to Europe. Happy travels!
Hi Matt,
We always fly XL Airways, (a French airline). Website: XL.com I just booked a round-trip flight from Miami to Paris non-stop round-trip for June 2015 for a grand total of $725 per person! This is the same price we paid with them last August. They fly out of select US cities including New York. The fares were just published for next summer. It's a basic airline but for the price it can't be beat!!
I bought tickets in February, 2014, for my recently-concluded October trip. Round-trip on US Air from Philadelphia to Paris was $1277 or so. FWIW, both flights went smoothly.
Thanks everyone. We booked Boston-Paris and Geneva-Boston through Icelandair for $920 each. We figured that was about as good as it was going to get for June-July 2015. Thanks for your input.
-Matt
